Vim: A great tool for your toolbox! History I Originally created for the Unix operating system by Bill Joy (one of the founders of Sun) I Created a visual interface for the original ex line editor on UNIX I The name vi is derived from the shortest unambiguous abbreviation for the command visual in ex I The Single UNIX Specification specifies vi, so every conforming system must have it. I vi is not open source but there are several clones with the most popular being Vim Vim I Vim is a clone of vi created by Bram Moolenaar and was first released in 1991 I Vim stands forViIMproved I Vim is not 100% compatible with vi as defined in the Single Unix Specification I Vim has many improvements over standard vi I Vim has a built-in tutorial for beginners (accessible through the vimtutor command) I Vim has 6 modes, 4 of which you will spend 99% of your time in. Vim Modes I Normal mode - For navigation and manipulation of text. This is the mode that vim will usually start in, which you can usually get back to with ESC. I Insert mode - For inserting new text. The main difference from vi is that many important "normal" commands are also available in insert mode - provided you have a keyboard with enough meta keys (such as Ctrl, Alt, Windows-key, etc.). I Visual mode -For navigation and manipulation of text selections, this mode allows you to perform most normal commands, and a few extra commands, on selected text. Vim Modes - continued I Select mode - Similar to visual but with a more MS-Window like behavior. I Command-line mode - For entering editor commands - I Try :help I Try :Ni! I Ex-mode - Similar to the command-line mode but optimized for batch processing. Using Vim I When using Vim the goal is to keep your hands on the home row I Primarily you will use normal mode, and insert mode when editing text I Visual mode allows you to cut and paste large swaths of text all at once I Command mode allows you to send commands to the editor such as save (:w) or quitting (:q) Learning Vim - basic commands I Saving a file - ESC then :w I Opening a file - ESC then :e <filename> I Quitting - ESC then :q I Save then quit - ESC then :wq I To switch to insert mode hit i. To get back to normal mode hit ESC I Here is good guide to get you started with the basics. http://cs.boisestate.edu/~amit/teaching/handouts/ vi-two-page-ref.html I vimtutor will walk you through all the basic commands. Learning Vim - Regular expressions I Vim has a powerful regular expression engine built in to help you find and edit text. I While in normal mode type /<regex> and Vim will find all the text that matches. I You can also do a complex find and replace with :%s/<regex>/<new text>/cg which can be read as globally (g) find all the text that matches the <regex> and replace it with <new text> and confirm with me (c) before you actually make the change. Customizing Vim I When Vim starts up it looks for a file named .vimrc in your home directory I You can use your .vimrc with any version of Vim I You can customize your .vimrc to add in any plugins or settings that make Vim easier to use. For example changing the font to something easier to read. I Take a look a Shane’s vimrc as a starting point https://github.com/shanep/vim I Vim takes some time to learn but once you have mastered it the payoff is faster editing and coding Customizing Vim - Font example I The font is bad with the default install you can fix it with the following code in your .vimrc I if has("win32") set guifont=Consolas 18 endif if has("unix") if system('uname')=~'Darwin' set guifont=Menlo\ Regular:h18 else set guifont=Inconsolata\ Medium\ 18 endif endif Vim plug-ins I Vim has an extensive set of plug-ins that you can leverage to add additional functionality. Below is a few plug-ins that you may want to try out. I NERDTree - Gives you a buffer view of all the files and directories in your current working directory. (Similar to the project window in eclipse) I TagBar - Gives you a layout off all the functions, methods, classes, and structs of the currently loaded buffer. (Similar to the class view window in eclipse) I SuperTab - Ties the built in omnicomplete to the tab button. (Not as great as code complete in eclipse but better than nothing at all!) GVim and MacVim I There is a GUI version of Vim that is easier to use and more friendly in a graphical environment. You get a tool bar that provides many of the common commands so you don’t have to memorize everything! I You can install this on Fedora Linux with the command: yum install vim-X11 I MacVim is a version of vim that has been customized for Mac I GVim is also available on windows. I You should generally use GVim or MacVim for daily usage. The terminal version is handy if you are working over a slow ssh connection. References I Wikipedia entry on Vi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi I Wikipedia entry on Vim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vim_(text_editor) I wikibooks entry on Vim: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ Learning_the_vi_Editor/Vim/Modes I Vim homepage: http://www.vim.org.